Marine craft are available in a wide variety of sizes beginning with dinghies which are small boats often carried or towed for use as a ship's boat by a larger vessel. Dinghies generally are configured as rowboats or have an outboard motor and usually range in size from six to twenty feet in length. Many modern dinghies are made of synthetic materials and can be either rigid, semi-rigid, or inflatable. Whatever the construction, a dinghy is typically used to accompany and to tend to tasks surrounding a larger host vessel.
While some dinghies are stowed onboard the larger vessel when not being manned for a particular task at hand, other dinghies are secured or moored to the host vessel and towed when the size of the host vessel is not significantly larger than the dinghy. In such instances, the dinghy would occupy excessive deck space on the host vessel. Thus, a dinghy will typically exhibit a significantly smaller freeboard than that of the host vessel. This disparity in freeboard can pose a problem when trying to moor the dinghy to the larger host vessel. The operator of the dinghy may have difficulty reaching the gunwales of the larger vessel to properly moor the dinghy unless there is another person on the host vessel to assist. Since the host vessel will typically not have cleats or other hard points on the outside of the hull, the operator of the dinghy may be in a quandary with respect to securing, even temporarily, the dinghy to the host vessel.
Also, a dinghy is often used as a platform from which the outer surface of the host vessel hull is maintained such as by cleaning or polishing. Using the dinghy permits the maintenance personnel to work substantially in an upright position even when working close to the waterline of the host vessel as opposed to attempting to reach the sides of the hull from the deck of the host vessel. These maintenance actions also require the application of a certain degree of force or pressure to the host vessel hull by the individuals performing the work. In those instances, unless the dinghy is secured to the host vessel, the force applied by the individual will merely push the dinghy away from the host vessel as a result of Newton's Third Law of Motion which posits that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Thus, unless the dinghy can be securely moored to the host vessel, the efforts of the individuals to perform the various maintenance tasks are often thwarted.
Therefore, there is a need for a device to permit a temporary and secure mooring by a small boat to a larger vessel operable by a single individual. There is also a further need for the device to facilitate the mooring of the smaller craft to and movable along an entire length of the hull of the host vessel so that the entire surface area of the host vessel hull can be accessed by the personnel performing maintenance.